Name: Pinsir

Set: Hidden Legends

Card#: 13/101

Type: Grass

Stage: Basic

HP: 70

Weakness: Fire

Resistance: None

Retreat: C

Poké-Body: Crust

Any damage done to Pinsir by attacks from your opponent’s Basic Pokémon is reduced by 30 (after applying Weakness and Resistance).

 

Attributes: Pinsir is a basic, Grass Pokémon that currently has no Evolved form or pre-Evolutions.  So it’s all alone, for better or worse.  Being a Basic is as good as it gets for Stages, and being Grass, in and of itself isn’t too bad: Grass Weakness has been around since Base Set, but Grass Resistance is only seen on the majority of Metal Pokémon (though as we will later see, this doesn’t actually matter).  70 HP is good for a basic Pokémon.  I find that anything under 60 HP doesn’t have much of a chance, and we have exceeded that.

 

Moving onto the card’s bottom stats, we see that it has the oh-so-nasty Fire Weakness, though it is appropriate.  We see a total lack of Resistance, which I do not like.  Obviously, no Resistance is the worst Resistance.  The final attribute to evaluate is the retreat-a single energy is all it takes, making retreating a Pinsir a simple matter.

 

Abilities: The first attack is what hints that this is a Hidden Legends card is the Poké-Body.  It reduces damage done by the attacks of Basic Pokémon by 30.  This won’t do you a whole lot of good, but does give you the edge against Sandstorm Wobbuffet, and more importantly, Mewtwo ex and Rayquaza ex.

 

The main attack for this version of Pinsir is… Sonicboom?  Well, it doesn’t seem too Bug like, but it is a solid attack none the less, yielding 30 damage for only (GC), plus its effect of not being affected by Weakness or Resistance.  The effect sounds like a fair trade to me, so we are getting a small damage bonus of five.

 

I don’t get a lot of synergy from this card’s abilities-both are pretty good, but they don’t really go together.  Its Poké-Body makes it great opening… but it can’t attack until turn two, and by then, it probably will be dead.

 

Uses/Combinations: If you run a Grass deck, it can be a nice opener.  Outside of that, I am kind of at a loss.  If you can find someway to De-Evolve your opponent’s Pokémon and/or keep them from Evolving, it could be really, really good.

 

Ratings

 

Unlimited: 2/5-Not really too great here.  There are some very wicked Grass Basics in this format, like Rocket’s Scyther.  Jungle Scyther is also pretty strong (and can be added to most any deck).  Still, this has solid damage as back up for this format, and since a lot of its opponent’s are basic, it’ll be harder to kill.

 

Modified: 2.5/5-But I might be selling it short, at least according to our Gym Leader.  Then again, our local meta-game tends to differ from most other areas.

Limited: 4/5-The only reason not to run it is if you think you absolutely can’t squeeze in a few Grass Energy.  Solid damage, and you essentially are Resistant to every Pokémon your opponent is apt to pull.  Just make sure you have something else to run incase your opponent drafted several Evolutions.

 

Summary

So close, it’s almost painful.

 

-Otaku